The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1887-10-04
AN INDIAN STORY.
Sol Taylor's Narrow Escape From
Torture and Death.

I came West when / was seventeen
years of age (said old Sol Taylor of
Georgetown, Colorado, the other day.,
and now I'm bit over sixty. You can
fgger that up and see how long I've
been skirmishing with Indians, griz-
lilies, panthers. rattesnakes, and the
other pesky varmints of mountain,
plain and prairie. There hasn't been
an Indian war for the last half century
that / haven't had a hand in, and |
reckon I've had as many stand-up
fights on my own hook as any scout or
hunter you can name. l have been
captured and put to the torture twice,
and been captured and got away with
out torture three or four times. In
times of peace / have lived with the
Pawnees, Kiowas, Apaches. Sioux,
Cheyennes, and Blackfeet, and in times
of war have fought all these tribes.
Mebbe l am. therefore, purity good
Judge of Indian natur', and when you
ask me which tribe of redskins has the
most honor Ireply that / never yet saw
an Indian whom / would trust a rod.
The only reason that some of 'em have
served the Government as scouts and
traitors is because they happened to
hate their own kind just then a little
wuss than they did the white man.
However. you want some of my own
adventures, and 1 will give you one.
Before the days of railroads in the
West, a man who was spilin' for an In
dian fight could get it within rife-shot
of Fort Kearney, and this state of af-
fairs continued up to 1866 and later.
The last time l was captured was on
the Smoky Hill fork of the Kansas
river, and it was while the railroad
was being pushed across the State of
Kansas. A railroad through the Indian
country meant goodbye to game and
goodbye to the Indian. The redskin
realized this as forcibly as the white
man, and he was on hand to fight the
progress of the road. He was foolish
enough to suppose that the killing off
of a few scouts and surveyors
would stop all work, and by
the time the road was half
way across the State of Kansas
every Indian who had any patriotism
about him was in front of it and doing
battle. The contractors had to employ
great many scouts and fighters to
protect the advance men, and / was
one of those thus engaged. In the five
months of my employment / killed
thirty-nine Indians and brought thirty
nine scalps to camp. and there were
other scouts who did as we'll, or better.
We did not lose near as many men in
proportion, as we fought entirely on
the defensive, and had all the advan-
tage.
My capture occurred one morning in
September. One of the engineers of
the road had been on a spree, and
while verging on delirium tremens had
left camp and wandered off. He had
been gone two or Aree hours before he
was missed, and at midnight of rainy,
gusty night six of us started out on
foot to hunt him up. As no one knew
the direction he had taken, each of US
went his own way. There were plenty
of Indians around US, and scout had
been wounded that afternoon within
half mile of our camp. Each man of
us who went out took big chances of
being captured, but there was no hest
tating or hanging back on that account.
Our camp was close to the river, and
my first move was to cross the stream.
The water was no more than waist
deep, and had no trouble in reaching
the other bank. The engineer, whose
name was Sewell, had gone off in his